


Intimacy

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of intimate conversations between Katniss and Peeta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**I.**

 

Peeta’s still sleeping when I shift over and curl up into him. He’s shoved the blankets down to his waist, exposing his bare chest, and I nestle closer, feeding off his warmth as I drape my arm over his torso and curve my hips over his. The pre-dawn chill cuts through the air in our bedroom; the window’s wide open again, even though I swear I’d closed it in the middle of the night when I woke up shivering and covered in goose bumps. Peeta must have thrown it open again sometime after I’d fallen back asleep, though—there’s still a thin sheen of sweat over his skin, as though he’d woken up drenched, his hair clinging to his forehead. 

A blizzard could be raging outside and he’d still insist on keeping the window open. It’s the only way he can fall asleep.

That was the first thing that came back to him after the hijacking.

He stirs after a few minutes, and it’s only then that I notice I’ve been running my fingertips up and down his arm, just grazing over it, with my fingernails barely making contact with his skin. He keeps his eyes closed at first when he turns his head in my direction, his mouth forming one of those dreamy smiles. 

“Mmm… that feels nice.”

Just to tease him, I stop the motion, then wait for his eyes to open so I can hover over him with a grin. My hair’s starting to come out of my braid and loose tendrils fall forward, brushing over his jaw line. He reaches up to capture one of the wayward locks between his thumb and forefinger, then runs down it and winds it around his finger, watching it curl and uncurl.

“What time is it?”

“A little after 5.”

He groans, then lifts his head to look at the clock on the nightstand, as though to see it for himself, then falls back onto the pillow and slides his arm under his head. 

“Even on my day off, I can’t seem to sleep in.”

I lay back down and settle over his breastbone. The slow, steady drumbeat of his heart hums against my cheek. “Now you’ve got me awake,” I say. A long, drawn-out yawn swallows the tail end of my sentence. “That’s what I get for falling in love with a baker.”

The hand that had been drawing tiny circles on my waist suddenly stops. I don’t notice it at first, until I feel the stillness of his chest, as though he’s holding his breath. I angle my chin upwards to look up at him, and find him staring up into the ceiling. It’s like he’s trying to make out the shapes the shadows are making, or watching the play of fading moonlight on the smooth plaster. But he’s not saying anything, and I know all the words are just building up in his brain, like water filling up a bucket.

He looks down at me without moving his head, the briefest of glances before he takes his eyes back up to the ceiling again, where the weak glow of the emerging sun is casting light.

“When did you know?” he says.

“Know what?”

I watch the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. As usual, he’s choosing his words carefully.

“That you were in love with me.”

My fingers trace the curve of his ribs, feel the rise and fall of his chest.

“I don’t know,” I say. But that’s not entirely true. There were moments early on when I knew it, but just didn’t know I knew it—but I don’t really know how to explain this to him when I don’t think I can even explain it to myself. “It wasn’t like the way it was with you. Like when you heard me sing and you just… knew.”

“That’s not when I knew.”

“What?”

He looks down at me. “I noticed you then, that’s true. And I knew you had me from that moment on, but… that’s not when I knew I was in love with you. Not truly.”

“Oh.”

He reaches down to my chin, tilts it upwards. 

“In the Capitol, underground… when I was losing it and I just wanted it all to end… when I wanted you to end it for me… You didn’t. You kissed me instead.”

“Yeah,” I say softly. “I remember.”

“That’s when I knew.”

My throat closes, struggles to force the words past the lump that’s now lodged itself there. I break the eye contact because it’s too intense—too much for me to sustain.

I take in a shaky drag of air, then finally, find my voice. 

“When they took you from me,” I say. “When you looked at me and you looked past me—and I thought you were gone for good… I realized it then.”

I can barely get the last words out without my voice cracking. I know he hears this, because his hand closes over mine.

“Do you think this would have happened anyway?” he says. “Even if the Capitol hadn’t…”

“Yes.”

I lever myself up on my elbow, lock my eyes with his as I say it again. 

“Yes.”

He reaches up to brush the hair off my forehead, traces the scar that still runs over my eye. 

“You wouldn’t change a single thing about how it all happened. Real or not real?”

I smile and turn my head to bring his hand to my lips. 

“Real.”


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm absolutely floored by the response to this fic so far. Thank you, thank you for your kind words and your kudos. I've been out of the fic game for a while, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to shake the rust off. I'm so happy so many of you found this fic and have shown it so much love.
> 
> Hope you stick with me to the end :).

**II.**

I’m floating. Feeling weightless and graceful and nothing at all like the bloated, swollen creature I see every time I look in the mirror.

Peeta says I’m beautiful. That he loves my growing roundness, the curves where there were once harsh angles and jutting bone. But he’s not the one who has to move around in this body, not the one whose center of gravity has suddenly shifted or had to watch helplessly as the limbs you were once used to, the hips and breasts and stomach you’d known so well since adolescence, change before your very eyes into something you barely recognize anymore.

Still, I try to see it through his eyes. Try to appreciate the transformation and remind myself of the hell we’ve endured to even get to this point. 

I place my hand on my rounded belly. There’s a flutter of movement beneath my fingers and I can’t help but smile as ripples of water spread out from where the tiny kicks are originating. Peeta puts his hand over mine, right where the baby has shifted. The imprint of her little foot makes a brief appearance, stretching my skin, then disappears again a few seconds later. He laughs, then flattens his hand against my stomach, waiting for her to kick again, but she’s fallen asleep, and he leans back against the tub, disappointed.

“She’ll be at it again after we have dinner,” I say. “Though I’m not in any hurry to leave this bath anytime soon.”

My skin’s already wrinkly from nearly an hour in the water, but this is the first time in weeks I haven’t felt awkward and unwieldy, and I’m relishing it. 

“So are you admitting I was right about how soaking in a tub being the next best thing to swimming in the lake?” he says, his voice tickling my ear. His hand is tickling me too, fingertips brushing up my arm in the way that makes me shiver.

“Maybe.”

He laughs. Just this morning I was lamenting the bitter cold outside, how I wished this were the middle of summer and I could go into the lake to relieve the constant pressure on my back and hips, counteract the endless pull of gravity. “Let’s bring the lake inside, then,” he said. And when I gave him a skeptical look, he took my hand and led me into the bathroom where he filled the tub with warm water and urged me to get inside. Like a stubborn ox, I refused, only relenting when he finally agreed—at my insistence—to join me in there, too.

Water splashes out of the tub when I push down to slide up a little more. I’m starting to feel uncomfortable, though I’m not about to admit it. As if he senses it, he shifts too, holding himself upright to give me room to maneuver in what little space we’ve got.

After a while, he says, “Katniss…”

“Hmm?”

“We haven’t really talked about names.”

My hand goes to my belly once again, traces a circle around my now protruding belly button. I’m almost at 35 weeks and it’s true, we haven’t really broached the subject. Early on, we were just holding our breath, hoping to get past week 10 unscathed, although neither of us dared to say it out loud. Later, when we entered the second trimester, the nightmares came. Intensified. Consumed me to the point of terror. Peeta spent many nights—too many nights—talking me back down to reality, assuring me the baby was healthy, reminding me we could protect her once she was here.

That she would never have to go through a Reaping.

We didn’t talk about names then. Not when all I wanted to do was learn to keep the panic at bay.

And now, as we approach the final weeks, there’s another ghost in an already crowded room. One more thing that stares us in the face, and Peeta’s been trying to find the right words to bring it up.

So I spare him the trouble. I bring it up first.

“I don’t want to name her Prim.”

He brings his hand up to cradle my head. Water drips down his arm and onto my shoulder, trickling down into my collarbone. It’s cool by the time it reaches that spot. By the time it passes over the space where my heart is.

He doesn’t answer me with words, but instead, with a kiss, bringing his lips to the crown of my head. There’s wetness there, too. I’m not sure if it’s water this time or tears.

“I don’t want that burden on her.”

“I know.” He shifts again and water spills onto the tile. I lean my head back against his chest, watch my belly come up over the water line.

“Sometimes, I wonder… can I really do this? I’m so messed up, Peeta. I’m so damaged.”

“We both are.”

I think of my mother, who withdrew into her own world after my father died, who still hasn’t fully returned to me after we lost Prim. And I think of the void I nurse in my own heart, the space Prim used to occupy. If I have pieces of me that are missing, how can I ever give my all to this child? 

“We still know how to love,” he says. “That part wasn’t damaged.”

“What if love isn’t enough?”

“It has been.”

He threads his fingers through mine, then holds it up to the light. It catches on the band of my ring, plays on the smooth surface of the pearl that’s embedded in the setting.

“And when it’s not… we help her to understand.”

I don’t ask him how we’ll do that, when I myself still don’t understand. Not fully.

His lips touch the crown of my head again. I feel the shape of his words as he speaks and try to absorb them. Internalize them.

Believe them.

“She’ll be strong, our girl,” he says. “Just like we are. Just like we had to be.”

He’s right. She will be. Because she’ll be the child of victors.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much again for all the amazing notes you've left on this fic and the way you've embraced it! I've been away from the HG 'verse for a while and it's nice to find my footing again :).

**III.**

 

Heat rises rises off his skin. Sometimes, I forget that he was the boy on fire, too. That he was there by my side, clasping my hand as we left an entire stadium full of spectators mesmerized and clamoring for more. His hand tightens on my shoulder, every bit as strong and firm as his grip had been back aboard that chariot, and I lift my head up off the pillow of his arm to catch his satiated smile. He looks about as boneless and content as I feel right now.

“Why don’t we do this more often?” 

I lay my cheek down to rest on his breastbone and feel his sigh reverberate against it. 

“What, play hooky while the kids are at school or have our way with each other in every room of the house?”

He laughs and and angles my chin upwards towards him to give me a ravenous kiss that leaves me more than a little punch drunk. “Both,” he says, running his thumb across the seam of my lips. I take it in my mouth playfully, sucking it just so and nipping it gently to earn a surprised, but approving grin from him. “And not quite every room…” He leans in and whispers right in my ear, nearly undoing me again. “There’s still the attic left to christen. Give me a few minutes, and then we can cross that one off the list, too.”

“Best idea I ever had, whisking you away today.”

“It was quite inspired, if I say so myself,” he says. “Of course, taking off in the middle of the lunch rush probably won’t win me any fans. I’ll pay dearly for that, I’m sure.” His grin widens when he looks at me. “But I can’t say I really care all that much right now.”

I come up on my elbow and reach down to give him a slow, lingering kiss that draws a moan out of him. I can never get enough of that sound. 

“Good.”

His hand reaches up to play with my hair, then he pulls me down again so he can undo my braid altogether and fan my hair out on the pillow. He looks down at me for a long time like this, running the backs of his fingers over the curve of my breasts, his knuckles brushing over the fleshy part of my stomach, where the faint criss-cross of burn scars have faded after nearly two decades.  

“When I look back on this moment,” he says, “it’s going to be hard not to remember it being shiny.”

“What do you mean?”

I slide up to sitting, lean back against the headboard. His eyes follow my motion, and he lays a hand on my knee, sweeps this thumb back and forth over the rough skin on it.

These days, we can go months without him asking me, “Real or not real?” It’s more of a game now, a playful exchange rather than a genuine attempt at trying to decode an errant image. But every once in a while, I’ll see him take pause, see that look of concentration take over his face again. The crease between his brows appears, then deepens, and I know he’s trying to catalogue some flash of something that’s snuck in without warning.

And sometimes there are moments, like the one we’re in right now, when I wonder if he’s trying to brand the memory in his brain with a certain marker, something to make him remember that—when he looks back on it years from now—it really happened.

That it wasn’t something he’d manufactured in his mind.

“This feels… vivid. I look at how the sunlight is filling the room, or how flushed your cheeks are right now. It’s intense. Everything’s… intense.”

“It’s hard for you to trust it when it’s intense?”

“Sometimes,” he says softly.

I place my hand on his cheek. His skin feels warm, picking up the heat from the sunlight that captures him in its snare. I notice his eyelashes again, the long threads of light blond hair, almost colorless from his angle, and I remember the boy who used to sit by my side in silence for hours, drawing in the plant book. And it hits me again that that boy grew into the man who became my husband, the father of my children.

And I wonder how much of me he remembers, before I became the woman who married him.

“You used to come into the bakery sometimes with your father,” he says suddenly, as though he’s been nursing the memory for some time now. It’s more of a statement than a question, but I nod anyway, to confirm it. “You were supposed to be in school, but once in a while, he’d take you with him to trade game.”

I smile. “Yeah. But how’d you know that, if you were supposed to be in school, too?”

His face darkens at this, and I know immediately I’ve tread on ground that’s best left alone.

“When one of the clerks would call in sick, my mother would take us out of school so she could have extra hands to help her.”

“Oh.”

Of course. I remember now. Every so often, I’d notice his empty seat and linger on it for a moment, but I wouldn’t really give it much thought and forget all about it when he was back in class the next day.

He must have been five, six years old at the time. Barely old enough to walk home from school by himself, let alone help move sacks of flour or sweep the floors or turn out large batches of dough. Did he even get the chance to be a normal child? To play and be free like I was before my father died? Was he ever loved and cherished, not merely treated like hired hand?

I wonder if there’s some chance—however small it may be—that he’s remembering this wrong. That this is one of the memories that may have been distorted along the way. But I know deep down it’s real, just as real as his memory is of me and my father coming into their bakery to trade.

“She wasn’t always so bad, you know,” he says. The look on my face must have given me away. Or maybe he just knows me that well that he can tell by one glance what I was thinking, trying to work out how a mother could have done that to her sons. “I think… in her own way, she loved me.”

I can’t imagine anyone not loving Peeta. 

“Were you happy?”

It’s a strange question to ask him. Especially after all this time. I know him so well that I take these things for granted, assume I know everything there is to know about Peeta Mellark. But I only know the Peeta whose world collided with mine on the day of the Reaping. And I realize, with a fresh dose of guilt, that I’ve never really taken the time to get to know the Peeta who came before.

“Yeah,” he says. And I know he means it. “But not as happy as I am now.”

He presses his lips to my temple, and I feel something shift in him again, warmth transforming into heat.

“So… there’s the attic.”

I laugh softly and lean over to kiss him. His hand has already moved down, gliding down the side of my waist, brushing over the curve of my hips, fingertips sliding over… teasing me in the most intimate of ways. 

“There’s the attic…”

He grins at me and I’m a goner all over again.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for embracing this story the way you have. I'm not sure when I'll be able to offer you new fic after this, so I'm glad I got to dabble in this world again, even if it was only for a little while :). Hopefully you'll follow me over to my own world when my original work is ready to be shared. In the meantime, I'll be hard at work at it, waiting for the day I can finally share it with all of you!

**IV.**

His fingers trace shapes on my bare back. Curves and lines, and the letters of my name. He lingers on the tip of the second “s,” following the path of my spine all the way down to the base and it’s there that he flattens his hand, fingers splayed across my sacrum. I’m just coming out of the half-dream state, vaguely aware that every nerve ending in my body is slowly awakening, when he places his lips on my shoulder blade, his morning stubble scratching the delicate skin there. 

I arch on instinct, wiggle against his kiss, then settle into his touch, pressing into him when he moves his hand over to curve over my hip and pull me closer. I can’t help but smile when the gap between us disappears and his hand travels just a few more inches, down my belly, then down even farther…

“Peeta…” 

But his name comes out wrapped in a moan and it’s muffled by his laugh. I want to scold him for finding this amusing, but the sensations are building inside me and I’m too distracted to do anything except clutch at the sheets and dig my teeth into my bottom lip. 

Outside, the waves are breaking, beating against the packed sand. And as I hear the roar of a new onslaught, my body gives a jerk, then collapses against him. If it weren’t for his steady grip, I swear I’d drift away, pulled in the undertow of the tide. 

“That’s a hell of a way to say good morning.” I try to sound stern, but it’s no use. There’s still a remnant of a sigh in my voice, throaty from the leftover sleep and pleasure. 

He laughs again, this time right into my shoulder. “Beats me sneaking out before the sun’s even out, doesn’t it?” 

“That’s debatable.” I turn over to face him and roll my eyes at his feigned pout, but already, I can feel the tips of my mouth quirking upwards. Unlike me, I think he’s entirely aware of the effect _he_ has. “All right, yes, I guess this is nicer.” 

He leans forward to kiss me, playfully capturing my bottom lip between his teeth, teasing my tongue with his in the way that makes me so heady I can barely remember my name. 

“You guess?” 

“Fine,” I say. “You win… _Much_ nicer.” 

He smiles against my mouth. “That’s more like it.” 

I decide it’s not really worth the trouble of fighting it anyway. He trails his kisses downward, down the column of my neck, branding me right on my pulse point. It drains me of the last bit of grogginess, and I take advantage full advantage of my new alertness, letting my hand drift along the side of his waist, trace the ridges of his stomach. I smile as I feel the tension build in his muscles. After all these years, I’m still in awe of the reaction I’m able to draw out of him. 

We come together in a languid, fluid motion, our bodies rocking in time to the rhythm of the sea outside, and it isn’t long before I breathe out his name for a second time, squeezing my eyes shut as I let the tremors work their way through my body. When I open them again, he’s staring down at me and smiling, hair damp with sweat and clinging to his temples. I reach up to brush them off his forehead and let out a contented sigh, my legs still locked around his, trapping him in this position so he’s still pinning me with his weight. 

Peels of laughter drift in through the open window, along with a shot of salty sea air. We both turn our head instinctively at the sound of those familiar voices, smile when we hear Annie call out, “Don’t let them get too close to the waves, Sammy! Make sure they stick to the shore…” 

More laughter. Shrieks of it. The boy shouts triumphantly; it seems he’s found something that makes his sister scream in terror, which of course, he finds all the more amusing. 

“They’re awake, I see,” Peeta says. 

“How much do you want to bet he made them all go out there early so he can collect his sea shells?” 

Peeta looks over at me and grins. “Sounds to me like he’s collecting jellyfish instead.” 

I groan, partly from the thought of what our son may be getting his hands into, and partly because Peeta’s just rolled off me and I feel that familiar loss I always do when he’s no longer inside me. His arm is still draped over my waist, though, his thumb fanning over the arch of my ribcage before he moves his hand up to capture my hair, sliding it through his fingers. 

Then suddenly, he stops his motion. When I look up, I see that his eyes are fixed on my exposed neck, and he reaches up as though to touch it, but pulls up short. 

“Hey,” I say, meeting his hand with mine, twining my fingers with his. “What is it?” 

He shakes his head. All the laughter has gone from his eyes, and I think I see them start to water, but he turns away in the next second and slips out of bed to close the window. 

“Peeta?” 

He’s still standing there, looking outside, watching the children frolic on the beach. His hands tighten around the window sill and my heart starts to drum in my chest, moves up to lodge in my throat. 

I know that stance. Recognize the whitening of his knuckles as his grip strengthens. 

“Peeta…” 

I reach out to him tentatively, barely a brush of my fingers on his shoulder. He flinches, but doesn’t fight me off, and when I curl my hand over his arm, he turns his head. 

“I’m all right,” he says, but his voice is hoarse. “Sorry, I just… I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“You didn’t scare me,” I say. 

I’m not sure if he believes me, but to show him I’m telling the truth, I take him in my arms, run my hands up and down his back. He doesn’t return the embrace, but does take hold of my hand when he eases off me, letting his fingers linger on mine, before he sits down at the edge of the bed and sinks his head into his hands. 

“What triggered it?” 

He’s quiet for a long time. And when he finally answers, his voice is subdued, as if he’s fighting hard not to let it crack. 

“I was looking at your neck, and I just got this flash… my hands closing around it…” 

He takes in a big gulp of air, starts to tremble, and I kneel down in front of him and close my hands over his wrists. 

“It’s over,” I say. “That was a long time ago and you won’t hurt me anymore.” 

“But I did,” he says. “I _did_ hurt you.” 

“You weren’t yourself.” 

“That doesn’t matter.” 

“Shh… shh…” 

“Katniss-” 

“Stop. Don’t do this.” 

He raises his head. Tears are streaking down his face. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I hurt you…” 

I lean forward to kiss him, right in the path of his tears, wiping them clean with my lips. 

“I’m sorry too,” I murmur. 

“What for?” 

“You know what for.” I pull away, take his face in my hands and angle his head up so his eyes are level with mine. “I never should have left you that night. In the arena. I was supposed to protect you. I promised to protect you, and… I broke my promise…” 

“So did I.” 

“But we’re here now, aren’t we? And listen… listen, can you hear them? Outside, laughing… playing… We did that. We made something good out of it all.” 

He smiles, cocks his head to the side, in the direction of the children’s shrieks, their laughter still reaching us even through the pane of glass. And his breath begins to slow. 

“We did that.” 

“Yeah. We did that.” I sit beside him on the bed. “And I couldn’t have done it without you.” 

“That’s what you and I do,” he says. “Protect each other.” 

I smile, nodding at the words I’d said to him a long time ago. What seems like a lifetime ago now. He reaches for my hand, and his palm is warm, welcoming. Wherever he was just now, he’s back from the brink, and I’m overcome with relief to have my husband back with me again. 

“Always.” 

“Always.”


End file.
